Radioactive “Dating” in Conflict!

Fossil Wood in “Ancient” Lava Flow Yields Radiocarbon

When miners were sinking a ventilation shaft for the new Crinum Coal Mine in Central Queensland in 1993 (see map below) they unearthed a rare find. After digging through the thin surface sands and clays, followed by basalt, 21 metres (almost 69 feet) down they found pieces of wood entombed in the bottom basalt flow.1 Below the basalt were layers of claystone, siltstone, and sandstone with interbedded coal seams.2

Fossil wood in ‘ancient’ basalt

The wood was in three states—ash, charred, and intact.1 Those on-site at the time speculated that there had been two distinct trees, partly standing, still organic in nature, and thus not petrified. The imprint of a leaf was also discovered within the basalt, which was also regarded as remarkable, remembering that the enclosing rock was once molten lava erupted at 1000–1200°C (about 1800–2200°F).

So how could these tree trunks have survived being engulfed by molten lava? At approximately four metres (13 feet) thick, the basalt flow is relatively thin,1,3 and thus cooling would have been rapid (perhaps days, but a few weeks at most4). This is verified by the observed internal structure of the basalt flow.1,5 Since the tree trunks were engulfed at the bottom of the flow, cooling may have been immediate, with any water present in the wood aiding extremely rapid encapsulation and thus preservation.

The local geological context makes the basalt
flow approximately ‘30 million years old’,1,3
in keeping with other basalt flows in the region all regarded as of Tertiary
age (in the conventional terminology). Since the tree trunks were entombed
in the basalt lava, the wood is thus supposedly at least 30 million years
old. Also, what looked like the tree roots were found in the siltstone below
the basalt,3
suggesting the trees when alive were rooted into the siltstone and thus growing
on a land surface that was then covered by basalt lava. This siltstone belongs
to the Permian German Creek coal measures, conventionally believed to be around
255 million years old.6

Collection of samples

Small fragments of some of the wood samples
were kindly sent to us, and a subsequent mine visit took place in late August
1994.7
The pieces of wood recovered by the miners were examined and photographed,
as too was the leaf imprint, but access to the ventilation shaft was not possible,
nor were samples of the enclosing basalt available, having long been dumped
with all the other rubble and waste rock. However, an exploratory hole had
been drilled close to where the shaft was eventually dug. In the relevant
drill core, at the bottom of the lowermost basalt flow, pieces of fossil wood
still containing organic carbon were present encased in the basalt, right
at the boundary of the basalt flow with the siltstone below. This drill core
was subsequently sent to us once permission was granted by the mining company.7

After visiting the mine site, nearby outcrops
of the same basalt flows were investigated and sampled. This was to make sure
we at least had some samples of the basalt, just in case permission to have
the drill core wasn’t forthcoming.

Charred fossil wood.

Intact fossil wood.

Basalt with holes from former gas bubbles.

Fossil tree with roots in siltstone.

Laboratory work

Tiny portions of the same piece of fossil wood encased in
the basalt in the drill core were sent for radiocarbon (14C)
analyses to two reputable laboratories—Geochron Laboratories in Cambridge,
Boston (USA), and the Antares Mass Spectrometry laboratory at the Australian
Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO), Lucas Heights near
Sydney (Australia). Neither laboratory was told exactly where the samples
came from to ensure that there would be no resultant bias. Both laboratories
use the more sensitive accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) technique for
radiocarbon analyses, Geochron being a commercial laboratory and Antares
being a major research laboratory. Also, tiny fragments of the initial
wood samples provided to us, from the pieces of wood that had been found
during sinking of the ventilation shaft, were sent off for radiocarbon
analyses—one set of different fragments to each laboratory.

Pieces of the basalt samples from the outcrop and the drill core
were also sent to analytical laboratories, for major, minor, and trace
element analyses to establish the character of these rocks, but mainly
for radioactive ‘dating’ analyses. Potassium-argon (K-Ar)
‘dating’ was performed on the two outcrop samples by the AMDEL
laboratory in Adelaide (Australia), while one of the two outcrop samples
and two drill core samples, one being in contact with the fossil wood,
were ‘dated’ by Geochron Laboratories.

Results

The radiocarbon (14C) results are listed in Table
1.8 It is immediately
evident that there was detectable radiocarbon in all wood samples, so
that the laboratories’ staff had neither hesitation nor difficulties
in calculating 14C ‘ages’. When subsequently questioned
regarding the limits of the analytical method for the radiocarbon and
any possibility of contamination, staff at both laboratories (Ph.D. scientists)
were readily insistent that the results, with one exception,9
were within the detection limits and therefore provided quotable finite
‘ages’!8 Furthermore, they pointed
to the almost identical δ13C results (last column in
Table 1), consistent with the carbon being organic carbon from wood, and
indicating no possibility of contamination. So the results in Table 1
are staunchly defended by the laboratories as valid, indicating an ‘age’
of perhaps 44,000–45,500 years for the wood encased in the basalt
retrieved from the drill core.

In stark contrast to the ‘age’ of the wood are
the potassium-argon (K-AR) ‘ages’ of the basalt (see Table
2).8 It is readily apparent that
there are significant variations in the results, as evident in the calculated
‘ages’ of the outcrop 2 sample provided by each laboratory.
The problem of obtaining consistently ‘acceptable’ K-AR ‘ages’
is also highlighted by the observation that both outcrop and both drill
core samples probably represent the same basalt flow in each respective
location (hence the calculated average ‘ages’ in the last
column of Table 2).10
The staff of both laboratories (again Ph.D. scientists) defended their
analytical results,8,11
and did not hesitate to affirm that these basalt samples are, according
to their radioactive K-AR ‘dating’, around 45 million years
old.

Conclusions

While the quality and accuracy of the analytical
work undertaken by all the laboratories involved is unquestionably respected,
all the calculated ‘ages’ are mere interpretations based on unproven assumptions
about constancy of radioactive decay rates, and on the geochemical behaviour
of these elements (and their isotopes) in the unobservable past. To young-earth
creationists the geological context of these fossil wood fragments in the
basalt lava flow clearly indicates that these represent post-Flood trees overwhelmed
by a post-Flood volcanic eruption nearby, and thus both the fossil wood and
the basalt are less than 4,500 years old.

Nevertheless, within the conventional (uniformitarian) framework
of interpretation, a clear-cut conflict can be seen between these two
radioactive ‘dating’ methods. Normally fossil wood found in
such an ‘ancient’ basalt would not be radiocarbon ‘dated’,
because the wood would be considered far too old for any radiocarbon to
be left in it.13 Yet here
these radioactive ‘dating’ methods are again demonstrated
to be unreliable and clearly useless at determining the true age of the
wood and basalt.14 Therefore,
any published results from these ‘dating’ methods should not
be seen as casting any doubts whatsoever on the reliability of the biblical
chronology so carefully provided for us by the (always present) Creator
Himself.

References and notes

Copies of the relevant geological cross-section and
drill-hole data were kindly supplied by the Crinum Mine Project staff.
Return to text.

Letter dated 27 April 1994 from Greg B. Chalmers,
the Chief Project Engineer at the time for the Crinum Mine Project.
Return to text.

A.A. Snelling, The formation and cooling of dykes,
TJ5(1):81-90,
1991. Return to text.

An upper section filled with vesicles (spherical
holes left by gas bubbles), a coarse-grained middle section, and a hard,
dense, fine-grained bottom section—indicative of rapid cooling
from bottom up and top down simultaneously. Return to
text.

Greg B. Chalmers, then Chief Project Engineer, and
BHP Australia Coal Pty Ltd, operators of the Crinum Mine, are thanked
for allowing our visit to the mine and the photographing of their fossil
wood and leaf specimens, and for providing pieces of their fossil wood
samples and the several metres of drill core that were so crucial to
this investigation. Return to text.

Original copies of all the official laboratory analytical
and ‘dating’ reports, and the correspondence with staff
of the laboratories, have been kept on file. Return to
text.

The one exception was due to the small quantity of
carbon extracted from the sample, but when repeated by the other lab,
a finite ‘age’ was obtained. Return to text.

However, other analytical results provide evidence
that the outcrop does probably represent a younger, though closely related,
basalt flow to that sampled in the drill core. Return
to text.

They did suggest the possibility of some variable
contamination of the samples with atmospheric argon, but definitely
not contamination introduced by their laboratory procedures. Return
to text.

It needs to be remembered that during the Flood
and immediate post-Flood periods the earth’s stronger, but fluctuating,
magnetic field affected the incoming cosmic ray influx, resulting thus
in a lower radiocarbon production rate and therefore radiocarbon ‘ages’
much greater than the true ages. Return to text.

The results of this investigation confirm that it
is likely radiocarbon may also be detected in other fossil woods found
at even deeper levels in the so-called geological column, even if the
fossil wood was from pre-Flood trees buried during the Flood. Further
investigations are in progress. Return to text.

A fuller report with all technical and analytical
details, including the results from otherradioactive
‘dating’ methods and the attempted identification of the
fossil wood, was later published, Latest
Technical Journal (vol. 14 no. 2) rebuts skeptics, 2000.
Return to text.

δ13CPDB denotes the
measured difference of the ratio of 13C/12C (both
stable isotopes) in the sample compared to the PDB (Pee Dee Belemnite)
standard—a fossil belemnite from the Cretaceous Pee Dee Formation
in South Carolina, USA. The units used are parts per thousand, written
as ‰ or per mil (compared with parts per hundred, written as %
or per cent). Organic carbon from the different varieties of life gives
different characteristic δ13CPDB values.
Return to text.

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Answers in Genesis is an apologetics ministry, dedicated to helping Christians defend their faith and proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ effectively. We focus on providing answers to questions about the Bible—particularly the book of Genesis—regarding key issues such as creation, evolution, science, and the age of the earth.